Case Number 12257: Small Claims Court

The Saw Trilogy

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All Rise...

Judge Dennis Prince wonders if you'll see what he saw when you see Saw.

The Charge

Most people are so ungrateful to be alive, but not you, not
anymore…

The Case

"I want to play a game."

When Saw was released to unsuspecting
fear fans in 2004, it came on like a sucker punch to those in attendance. A
surprise hit at Sundance, the film had developed a "buzz" that gave it
the coveted must-see public approval before its regular release. When it
was released, it effectively snuck up on jaded horror-mongers, they who likely
couldn't recall when they had last been challenged by an
intelligent-albeit-unflinchingly-intense excursion into human corruption. It was
a shocker, no doubt, but it gained its highest marks for its implied
horrors, magnificently wielding its ability to convince its audience it just saw
a gruesomeness that was never actually depicted on screen—they only
thought they saw the destruction and dismemberment suggested by that
hacksaw laying on the floor. It was a return to competent genre storytelling
that reminded audiences everywhere how tiresome the usual ensemble-gets-slashed
formula had become.

The film could have easily stood on its own—a one-off
production—that would sustain a level of reference by the fan base that
quickly formed around it. Of course, the frothing fans demanded more and so the
Saw franchise was launched. Although the initial film was rather
self-contained, there was room for extension and the subsequent two sequels
(with a third due within two weeks of this writing) sought to perpetuate the
unsettled and unimaginable horror of the twisted game master and the subjects of
his tests. While each of the films is afflicted with various weaknesses and
missed opportunities (more on that later), they all embody the compelling
philosophy of the Jigsaw killer, who stretches his subjects to the limits of
their moral convictions in order to confront them with their own fatal frailties
and self-inflicted downfalls. Over the course of each film, audiences are
similarly forced to witness the self-destruction, in agonizingly graphic detail,
that comes from what we'd all like to brush away as excusable indiscretions. In
Jigsaw's game plan, there are no excuses—only truth and consequence.

In Saw, first-timers James Wan and Leigh Whannell dare to drop us
into a the depths of decrepit despair when we witness the plight of Adam (Leigh
Whannell, The Matrix Reloaded)
and Lawrence (Cary Elwes, Twister).
Each shackled by the ankle and staring at the dead body on the floor between
them, the two strangers learn they are pawns in a serial killer's most unusual
game. Via mini-cassette recordings and various cryptic clues, the two are forced
to grapple with their life's choices, including the ultimate choice of whether
the putrid setting they find themselves in will serve as their final resting
place. But when they discover how the two of them are interconnected in their
individual deeds, the presiding yet apparently ethereal game master, Jigsaw
(Tobin Bell, Buried Alive), ups the ante
by giving them both the incentive to dispatch one another in a bitter fight for
survival and redemption.

Saw II begins its game several months
later when another grisly death attracts the attention of Detective Eric
Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg, Dead Silence), mainly because Jigsaw is still
on the loose and has called for Matthews directly. Finding and confronting
Jigsaw/John directly, Matthews learns that eight strangers have awakened in a
condemned house, so it would seem, with no memory of how they got there or why
they were plucked from their daily lives to participate in a deadly race against
time. By Jigsaw's devious design, the house is slowly filling with a lethal
nerve gas that will kill the unwilling occupants in two hours' time, including
Daniel (Erik Knudsen, Jericho), Matthews' own estranged son. In the
house, Daniel and the others must solve Jigsaw's lethal puzzles, including the
overarching mystery of what links each of them and why the surviving Amanda
(Shawnee Smith, The Island) has been
selected to undergo another of Jigsaw's unsavory games. As their life clocks
tick and the body count commences, Matthews is challenged to obey a rule leveled
against him—to patiently talk with John in order to be safely reunited
with his son.

Saw III commences precisely from
the close of its predecessor in which we find the detained Matthews struggling
to free himself and exact his revenge upon Amanda. Later, we meet up with
surgeon Lynn Denlon (Bahar Soomekh, Saw IV) who
becomes an unwitting attendant to the failing John. Rigged with a deadly device
of Amanda's design, Lynn must perform surgery to keep John alive lest his
expiration brings about her own gruesome demise. Concurrently, Amanda apprises
John of another subject of study, Jeff (Angus Macfadyen, .45), who is challenged with bestowing forgiveness
upon a series of individuals who have ties to the death of his young son. If
Jeff is not willing to make personal sacrifices of his own as a proof of his
forgiveness, each of the ensnared individuals will suffer the horrific
consequences.

Easily, the first film still stands as the best in the franchise just by
nature of its claustrophobic setting and its ability to practically make us
smell the stench of the decaying bathroom. The production, admittedly a
low-budget endeavor by Director James Wan and Screenwriter/Actor Whannell, again
proves how inventiveness-out-of-necessity will generally turn out a better
product than that buoyed by a bloated budget. Surely, the film has a replay
value that justifies the purchase of subsequent releases and regular
re-screenings, alone or in the company of friends. Whannell nearly bests the
veteran Elwes but, in the overall view, both actors strike a chemistry that
sells the film's dire situation from the outset.

When Saw II came around, something had been lost. Although Whannell
returned to pen the screen treatment, the absence of Wan seemed to allow the
second outing to slip into the laziness of most sequels—add more
characters and more gruesome settings and the film will be better than its
predecessor; it wasn't. While the film is still quite engaging, the snotty
attitudes of the eight characters trapped in the house gives a sinking feeling
that a great franchise has immediately been hamstrung. The saving element here,
however, was the time spent with John/Jigsaw, and the further elaboration of his
philosophy about the appreciation for life. A good turn by Wahlberg also helped
rescue this one from near-fatal tedium.

The third film, however, returned to form and presented the fans with the
sort of puzzling predicaments they enjoyed in the first outing, pondering
everything they saw and heard in order to unravel Jigsaw's riddles before the
on-screen characters could. The gore factor was heightened as was the sense of
urgency for the key characters to attain internal reconciliation before it was
too late. If you were to skip from the first film to this third installment, you
likely wouldn't feel you had missed much from excising Saw II. That said,
the opportunity to view all three films in successive fashion makes for a
riveting experience that further tempts a purchase of this trilogy. Tobin Bell's
John/Jigsaw is a high point in the annals of horror, his half-mast gaze
instantly unsettling in its cool calculation and commensurate condemnation. His
is a performance—in all three films—not to be missed.

As celebrated as these films have been, they've also been met with a level
of grumbling as they each have been offered to the DVD consumer in multiple
releases. Early releases would provide a theatrical cut and a scant few bonus
features but it was immediately understood that expanded and uncut editions
would follow in the coming months. The Saw pictures were notorious, then,
for unapologetic double- and triple-dipping. The answer to the problem was
simple, however: wait for the full-fledged releases. Perhaps this was a game in
itself leveled at DVD consumers who, while they were fully aware expanded
editions were on the release horizon, still couldn't resist purchasing the
initial offerings the moment their street date arrived. Who's to blame? In the
world of Saw, arguably there is no blame since the overall essence of the
pictures can justify multiple viewings and subsequent purchases. To that point,
and in the wake of the theatrical unleashing of Saw IV, Lionsgate is
presenting The Saw Trilogy, a commensurate six-disc collection that
delivers each of the three films with its supplement bonus feature discs. What
you'll find, then, are Saw: Uncut Edition, Saw II: Two-Disc Uncut
Edition, and Saw III: Director's Cut. It makes for a hellishly
engrossing triple bill and is likely just the sort of material to refresh or
study up on before viewing Saw IV.

Yet, as enticing as this set seems to be, there's an element of
disappointment here in that nothing was done to differentiate this collection
from the three full-fledged single-film releases that had gone before it. In
fact, this collection is really just a quick grab of those originally authored
discs, pushed into a new multi-disc keep case with an enticing yet largely
useless collector's box (the dimensional vacu-formed head of Billy the Puppet
serves as an outer slipcase for the disc box; beyond this, it hasn't much
purpose or value and, truth be told, clearly serves as a point-of-purchase
attention-getter). Therefore, you won't find any new re-masters here (and the
transfers on tap are excellent within the Standard Definition technology), nor
will you find altered audio tracks (and the DTS tracks are still pulse
pounding). As for extra features, you'll get the entire complement of
commentaries, making-of documentaries, short films, trailers, and more—a
total of fifteen hours—that had been released previously. As much as this
is all rehash, it's still remarkably entertaining, nevertheless. If you failed
to indulge in the special edition releases previously—especially the
excellent commentaries by the actors and filmmakers—here's your reward for
your patience and a perfect excuse to seize the moment and gather all three
films in their best SD presentations yet.

It's a value-priced proposition that is best suited to the uninitiated or
those with the aforementioned incomplete DVD library. For those who have already
purchased these editions in the expanded single-film releases, the clever
packaging alone isn't enough to warrant yet another purchase, but that's up to
you.